PRAGUE: A prominent hydel turbine company from Czech Republic has signed a deal with Salai Holdings Pvt Ltd for setting up mini-power projects in water-rich Manipur.

The Manipur government has given the go-ahead to Salai to take up the smart hydel project.

Mavel, the turbine manufacturer, which sells the machines in over 50 countries, including USA and Canada, will give logistic support to Salai in setting up the projects. Salai, the Imphal-based firm, will kick off its maiden venture at Sekmai barrage in Imphal West as a pilot project.

"Ours will be an environment-friendly project. We will only affix the turbine to be bought from Mavel at the water spill way to generate power," said Narengbam Samarjit, chairman and managing director of Salai.

Salai strongly feels that once the power project is set up, the state economy will be improved, considering the low cost of energy the new project is going to generate. "Once our project gets headway with a flying start, we will follow suit in other running dams in Manipur and elsewhere in the northeast," said Samarjit, who signed the deal with Mavel a few days ago in Prague.

The size of the turbine to be installed at Sekmai barrage and the capacity of power it will generate would be finalized by Mavel Engineers, Samarjit said.

At present, the state government purchases power from big companies at high cost and sells the same under subsidised rates to the state's consumers, losing crores of rupees from its exchequer.